Nebraska Stories (video) | NET Television

A One-Room School

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:15:00 CST

In 1997, NET Television made a film about a year in the life of Burr Oak School in Custer County, Nebraska. While this one-room school has long since been abandoned, it is not forgotten. We look back at a year in the life of the school and meet some of those kids today, all grown up.

The First Walk On

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:30:00 CST

Langston Coleman was a tough, African-American kid from the slums of Washington D.C. In 1963, Coleman hitchhiked from Washington DC to enroll at the University of Nebraska where he "walked-on" at football practice in hopes of making the Husker football team and getting a scholarship. He went on to become one of the most legendary recruits for the Cornhuskers.

Blizzard Voices of 1888

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:15:00 CDT

Nebraska poet and essayist, Ted Kooser, the 13th U.S. Poet Laureate, reads from his collection of poems recording the devastation unleashed on the Great Plains by the Jan. 12, 1888 blizzard. The Blizzard Voices is based on actual reminiscences of the survivors as recorded in documents from the time and written reminiscences from years later. Here are the haunting voices of the men and women who were teaching school, working the land, and tending the house when the storm arrived and changed their lives forever.

Two Convicts in a Haystack

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:30:00 CDT

A story told by Ted Kooser (Garland, NE), and John Lavicky and Herb Hrnicek (Dwight, NE). In one of the many snow storms that struck the Great Plains in 1949, two convicts of the penitentiary in Lincoln escaped and walked to Dwight in prison flip-flops. They were taken in by the community, thawed out and stuffed with duck, kraut and kolache. Eventually the Nebraska National Guard plowed the road and the convicts were taken back to prison, reluctantly.

The Blizzard of 1949

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:00:00 CDT

Like the Dust Bowl, with its blinding black winds that lasted for years, or the biblical plague of locusts, the 1949 blizzard raged from January through the spring. The monumental drifts it left in its wake finally melted...in July.

Nebraska's Tuskegee Heroes

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:00:00 CDT

Before 1940, African Americans were barred from flying for the U.S. military. But in 1941, an Army Air Forces (formerly Army Air Corps) program was started in Tuskegee, Alabama to train African Americans to fly and maintain combat aircraft. In this segment, Paul Adams and Charles Lane recall the racism they encountered on the ground in contrast to the freedom they felt in the sky.

Cowgirl Up

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:00:00 CDT

The story of Tina Vanderpool, a bronc- and bull-rider. Vanderpool came late to the sport of rodeo, but works hard to improve her skills and fearlessly throw her hat in the rodeo ring.

Fantasia in Clay

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:00:00 CDT

Gerit Grimm was born and raised in Germany. Her exposure to the culture of the United States was gained solely through viewing American cinema. The act of joining this American lifestyle, bridging the gap between movie fantasy and everyday reality, is at the core of the explorations of her current work.